SUNY Geneseo volleyball season suspended after hazing incident

GENESEO, N.Y. (AP) -- Freshman members of a New York college women's volleyball team were handcuffed and blindfolded during an initiation party and forced to drink vodka shots until some of them vomited, with one of the underage victims hospitalized for alcohol poisoning, according to police and court documents.

Eleven students at the State University of New York at Geneseo, including eight members of the team, have been charged with hazing and unlawful dealing with a child for serving alcohol to minors, village of Geneseo Police Chief Eric Osganian said.

Eight freshman, one 17 and the rest 18, were forced to drink alcohol while cuffed and blindfolded during the Sept. 2 party, he said. One of the 18-year-olds passed out on a lawn after leaving the party and was helped by passers-by when her teammates left her behind to go to a bar, she said in her statement to police.

The teen was taken to a hospital and told by a doctor she had a blood alcohol level of .266 percent, more than three times the state's legal limit for driving while intoxicated.

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Osganian said police decided to file charges after speaking with the student on Sept. 5 about what happened during the off-campus party at a players' apartment in Geneseo, a western Finger Lakes village 27 miles south of Rochester.

"It's a college town, drinking goes on here," Osganian told The Associated Press. "But this was more than a regular party. They definitely crossed the line."

The player who was hospitalized told police the night began as a "team initiation" involving the other seven freshmen, eight upperclassmen and three former team members. Three men, two of them the boyfriends of other players, were also there, the teen said.

The freshmen were told to paint each other's faces, but soon the underclassmen were being yelled at "like we were in the military and we were inferior," her statement said. At one point, after being handcuffed and forced to drink two shots, the teen fell and hit her head on a table, chipping a tooth.

Officials at SUNY Geneseo said last week that the team's season has been suspended pending the outcome of a police investigation.

They said they'll conduct their own investigation after police complete theirs and disciplinary action will likely, based on violations of the school's anti-hazing policy.

Of the 11 students charged, four are from Long Island and eight are from upstate New York. All are scheduled to appear in Geneseo Village Court on Oct. 9.

In March 2009, a 19-year-old SUNY Geneseo student from Queens was found dead in an off-campus house after a day of drinking at a banned fraternity. Authorities said Arman Partamian's blood alcohol content was between four and seven times the legal limit for driving. The following year, the college hosted the Novak Institute for Hazing Prevention, a weeklong conference aimed at eliminating hazing.

"I feel terrible that these students are experiencing what must seem to them to be an unimaginable nightmare," said Robert Bonfiglio, the college's vice president for student and campus life. "Our number one concern, however, must be student health and safety. Hazing, in any form, will not be tolerated at Geneseo."